the marriage of maria braun review

An explosion ripped through the building, to begin with, and she and Hermann had to sign the papers on a pile of rubble on the street. Maria adapts to the realities of post-war Germany and becomes the wealthy mistress of an industrialist, all the while … Whatever happened to Maria Braun during those years created a woman who is strong and cruel, sad and indomitable. An explosion ripped through the building, to begin with, and she and Hermann had to sign the papers on a pile of rubble on the street. Mike D'Angelo’s review published on Letterboxd: 83/100. As is the case with "The Marriage of Maria Braun", we see the parallels between the people and the infrastructure of Germany as the exteriors are rebuilt, but the interiors remain in ruins. Sporadically this does demonstrate masterful dialog and especially finely crafted direction from the distinguished German filmmaker, but summing it's entirety as a masterpiece feels way overpraised. Maria spends a day with Hermann Braun after their marriage, but the Second World War, a murder and her affair with textiles tycoon Oswald conspire to keep them apart for a … Maria applies for a job in a nightclub for American soldiers; it's located in a high school gym where she once attended school, and she mounts the parallel bars, which are still in place, and more or less orders the owner to give her the job. Just see it.". But in this version, instead of the tragic Mother trying to save her children and mourning them, Maria Braun sells out for comfort from collaboration with the Nazi's through the economic wonder "Wirtschaftswunder" of the cold war. Awards The population is starving and desperate; when an American GI tosses away a cigarette butt, a dozen Germans scramble for it. Alright already, get over it, was Handke's comment to the 1968 meeting of the Gruppe 48 -- those writers who wanted to "heal" from the war. His great influence, he said, was the German director Douglas Sirk, who fled Hitler and in Hollywood made a series of silky melodramas ("Imitation of Life," "Written on the Wind," "All That Heaven Allows") in which, one critic observed, the characters seemed to glide within invisible glass walls which kept them from touching. "Maria Braun"'s style reminds much of melodramas by Fassbinder's favorite Hollywood director, Douglas Sirk and offers a glimpse of the loss and survival in postwar Germany. Maria decides to get a job as a dancer/prostitute in a club that caters to American GI's and she meets a black Army soldier named Bill (Greg Eagles) and they start to see one another on a steady basis. It never felt authentic in a way they were rushing the words and dialogs. ", Maria is always honest, uses no deception, admits she is toying with Oswald, is coldly amused at his weakness. text. Hanna Schygulla is a knockout in The Marriage of Maria Braun, an intimate epic that reaffirms Rainer Werner Fassbinder's mastery of examining multifaceted people and a complicated nation. And this movie, probably his most accessible, takes a woman as the symbol for the nation-- a theme common to prehistoric oral literature, particularly among the Irish, made famous by Grimmelshausen's Mother Courage and updated by Brecht's play. This is a collection of three films that are connected thematically and concern themselves with economy in post World War 2 Germany. Perhaps it's just as well that I waited. The major difference is that Maria's husband is a much more sympathetic character than Mildred's daughter, which robs the movie of some tension. They quarrel. Her mother (Gisela Uhlen) alters the hem of her skirt while fretting that Maria's father would have been heartbroken to see his daughter as a bar girl; then she says she hopes somebody gives Maria some nylons. External Reviews Deemed as his most renowned and acclaimed film, The Marriage of Maria Braun won three German Oscars for Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, in addition to receiving a Golden Globe Nominee for Best Foreign Film and winning the Silver Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Although Maria gets pregnant she does not have the child giving one the idea that Germany is unfit for all young life and Maria is unfit for motherhood. The war has ended and Germany must rebuild and one day on a train Maria meets Karl Oswald (Ivan Desny) who is a successful businessman in textiles and she uses her charms to get a job. The character of Maria is fascinating as a person, but it also serves as an allegory for Germany during this period of reconstruction, now generally referred to as the "economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"). Like the dependence on smoking and cigarettes throughout the film; or the absurdity of the confrontation between Bill and Hermann; or the moments where Maria returns to the physical remnants of her old school; or the unexpected humour when she first attempts to talk to Hermann in prison. There was one situation in a train which was particularly bad when a woman and a man, strangers at this point, talk to each other. This was Fassbinder's big hit, because he toned down his politics both sexual and marxist, to focus on the loss of soul that Germany experienced. Spoilers "The Marriage of Maria Braun" is an interesting movie that gives the audience a look at the other side of WWII in Europe. Hanna Schygulla is good as the lead symbol, a war bride whose calculated sexual aggressiveness (a symbol of West Germany's rapaciousness) brings her to prominence in industry while she pines for her husband, who is imprisoned for murder. FAQ The Marriage of Maria Braun. But he does not. But it certainly isn't necessary to enjoying the movie. Search for: Recent Posts. The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) With The Marriage of Maria Braun (Die Ehe der Maria Braun), his greatest success, Fassbinder finally attained the popular acceptance he sought with German audiences. He does not seem to be the most talented when it comes to making a statement in terms of post-war history or political contents in general. Perhaps this may strike some as a heavy-handed metaphor for what's about to come: marriage on the rocks, so to speak. Even though Maria does not say much in this very short scene, the viewer has subconsciously tucked away this introduction as a possible example for the foundation of the film as foreshadowing of the drama and sadness to come. We follow her from about 1946 to the mid-1950s. (George Byrd). The B-girl joint is the first step on Maria's relentless climb to success. He hasn't died and when he enters the room a scuffle occurs and Maria breaks a bottle over Bill's head and he dies. At the end, her desperate lover, who is also her boss and has made her rich, tries to get a word with her; as he talks, she continues to enter numbers into an adding machine. Climbing the ladder, Maria Braun has her share of good times. The film has a running time of 120 minutes, is rated R and is German with English subtitles. The gorgeous Hanna Schygulla as a woman whose husband has to go to the WWII Russian front after 36 hours of marriage, keeps faith with him (as he takes the rap for a murder she commits), and accidentally blows up the (exquisite) house she has bought that he comes home to, theirselves included. Although her uppity attitude isn't always popular, and there is plenty of talk about Maria (and her "ways"), Maria Braun laughs it all away. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. There is a strong resemblance of 'Maria Braun' to Curtiz' noirish 'Mildred Pierce'. Poor Oswald would marry her, but she is married. Herman admits to the murder, ends up in jail and Maria vows to wait for him. There is a black American soldier she is fond of (they share the movie's only scene of physical affection), but when her husband unexpectedly returns and finds them in bed, she settles the matter by breaking a bottle over the GI's head. Review by Carlos Valladares 2 The honky-tonk, stuck-in-a-Mae-West-flick stiltedness of this Fassbinder allegory is sure to turn more than a … She is so loyal to her husband of less than a day that she kills for him, and so pitiless to her lover of many years that she drives him to death. After the brief opening wedding scene, the story rejoins Maria and her mother immediately after World War II, when they are sharing a flat carved out of a bombed building. That much everyone admitted. Despite his production of two to three films a year, he was not a hit-and-run improviser, but a stylist who often worked with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus to create elegant, mannered visuals. The cinematographer Ballhaus worked with Fassbinder on a dozen films in nine years, then "burned out," resigned, and started working for Martin Scorsese, who by comparison "was like a dream." Only my third Fassbinder film after Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and Satan’s Brew (1976), The Marriage of Maria Braun continues my fascination with the work of this unbelievably gifted German filmmaker. Fassbinder's opening scene is an excellent example of the female lead character, Maria Braun, becoming a metaphor for the German nation. While climbing up to the success she always remembers her husband, Hermann (her man) and convinces herself that whatever she does – is for him, for their future happy life together. Fassbinder made at least 30 features, or many more if you count his television productions, including the 15-hour miniseries "Berlin Alexanderplatz," and he did it all between 1969 and his death at age 37 in 1982. His occasional gentle characters, like the old woman in "Ali -- Fear Eats the Soul" (1974), are eaten alive. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. To make ends meet, Maria starts working at a bar for mainly American soldiers and get to know a black soldier. The film opens in 1943 with Maria's marriage to a soldier named Hermann Braun. Allegory for postwar Germany...examination of modernist female sexuality...Marxist critique of human labor under capitalism...yada, yada. A baby cries in the background as Maria and her soon to be husband dodge exploding rubble from a wall which had a picture of Hitler on it. I do not recommend the watch. Maria is determined to do well and climbs the corporate ladder and becomes Karl's mistress. User Ratings Her husband tells the court he did it and is sentenced to prison. With Hanna Schygulla, Klaus Löwitsch, Ivan Desny, Gisela Uhlen. While it's never less than interesting, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's allegory about the post-war economic German Miracle is somewhat slow and stifling, designed to constantly remind the viewer that an allegory is indeed what it is and to discount the notions of love that the writers (there are several, including Fassbinder) push to the fore. While war films are often trite and contrived, the films focusing on reconstruction efforts are always much more interesting. It is the story of a shrewd and ambitious woman who uses her sexual gifts as a means of achieving success. Hermann takes the blame and he is sentenced to a long term in jail so Maria tells him that she will succeed at something and get him out. A rich, evocative and darkly ironic masterpiece, Most effective entry in Fassbinder's Wirtschaftswunder Trilogy, torrid melodrama about a woman who can get what she wants, but needs are another matter, The Marriage of Maria Braun. Roger Ebert [Roger Ebert] New York Times [Vincent Canby] A Sharper Focus [Norman Holland] ... DVDBlu Review [Christopher S. Long - Criterion] Every 70s Movie [Peter Hanson] Eye For Film [Ben Sillis] Film @ The Digital Fix [Noel Megahey] Maria Braun is tough, shrewd and manipulative -- and gets more so as the years pass. (Hanna Schygula) marries a soldier in the middle of World War II and spends a half of day and the whole night with him. Bombs fell as Maria was married to a soldier named Hermann Braun, with the wedding party scrambling for safety. That's how long her marriage lasts before she loses him to the war and then to prison. The film stars Hanna Schygulla as Maria, whose marriage to the soldier Hermann remains unfulfilled due to World War II and his post-war imprisonment. No film of this genre made a greater impact than Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage Of Maria Braun, by far that director's most commercially successful film. The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) External Reviews. He confesses he was frightened to come; she has him so off-balance he has no idea how to please her. It is in short, a time of survival of the fittest. Three years later, alone in a room, naked on a mattress, surrounded by money, watching "20,000 Years in Sing Sing" on television, he gave a fatal jolt to his heart with what he phoned a friend to say was his last line of cocaine. This is the opposite of post-war Germany as depicted in the film "The Marriage of Maria Braun" where books are considered contraband but … The madness depicted in this one seen is really dependent on the sound. The two make sacrifices for each other hoping to build a better life for themselves. All three films in the trilogy look at these situations through the eyes of a strong-willed, arrogant and determined female-protagonist who strives against all odds to achieve the kind of lifestyle that she has always desired, but once she does, finds herself still feeling empty and lacking in spirit. Thankfully the couple's union is officially sealed and Hermann then goes off to fight in the war himself. But one day while getting intimate with Bill they see Hermann at the door. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The Marriage of Maria Braun [Blu-ray] at Amazon.com. She carries on with her life, becomes a successful businesswoman being not only sensual but intelligent, ambitious, and willing to use sex whenever or wherever necessary: "I don't know a thing about business, but I do know what German women want. Fassbinder's world was one in which sex, ego and money drove his characters to cruelty, sadism and self-destruction. I think because she gains a savage energy from these reminders of how her world was blown to pieces. | Communism turned toward Capitalism and the strains of war turned Maria Braun's marriage into a farce. Wirtschaftswunder: Fassbinder's economic miracle. "Because," she says, "you were well brought up, and I pretend that I was.". Showing all 55 external reviews. Metacritic Reviews. A city reflects the internal lives of its citizens. The Marriage of Maria Braun can be seen as the story of a shrewd and ambitious woman or as a parable on the decadence of postwar Germany. The sounds from this opening scene can also act as narratives paralleling Maria's dreadful life. Unfortunately I have to say that I did not think this was a particularly good watch. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's most profitable film, "The Marriage of Maria Braun" tells the tale of an upwardly mobile, independent Maria Braun (Hanna Schygulla), a woman who uses a combination of business smarts, tenacity and promiscuity to lift herself out of desperation. It’s a very populist movie. I find it interesting that the baby's cry is the only sign of young people in the entire film. Sensual and tough Maria Braun. While Mildred rebuilds her life after a personal tragedy, so does Maria, albeit in the backdrop of the post-war German economic disaster. First and best of Fassbinder's Post-WWII "Wirtschaftswunder" films. Alone, Maria puts to use her beauty and ambition in order to find prosperity during Germany's "economic miracle" of the 1950s. Hanna Schygula literally shines in every scene of the movie and she is fantastic. Full Review Ryan Cracknell Movie Views Hermann gets out of jail but goes to Canada to try and get over everything that Maria has done since he has been locked up. Some of his early work looks homemade ("We didn't know what we were doing, and it was like a game" remembers Hanna Schygulla, who starred in 20 of his films). The Marriage of Maria Braun 1979 ★★★★½ . | Maria Braun got married right in the middle of combat all around her and her husband Hermann. Check out the other film from him that I just mentioned instead. It was also Hanna Schygulla's Oscar worthy performance, probably one of her best of many great ones. Well Fassbinder doesn't want to heal, he wants to indict. I remember Fassbinder late at night at a back-street bar at Cannes that year, always in his black leather jacket, surrounded by his crowd, often scowling or arguing as they tried to please him. Maria remains fiercely loyal to this absent spouse, who is essentially a stranger, for all the rest of the film; perhaps it is her form of loyalty to Germany in its defeat. Review #1,511 (Reviewed at German Film Festival – first published 26 Nov 2017) Spoilers: No. When Hanna Schygulla says to her husband in prison `this are bad times for feelings' it is Fassbinder saying that in the seventies cinema there's no place for the classic melodrama of the 40s and 50s, unless all the craze that then was suggested now turns somehow more explicit. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's biggest international box-office success, The Marriage of Maria Braun is a heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past. He was Maria Braun and they were all Oswalds. 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